


it exists in me too

by alchemystique



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemystique/pseuds/alchemystique
Summary: He’d memorized the names of his forefathers, the great deeds they’d done, the achievements they’d made, the names of their swords, the feats of honor. He’d traced his hand over their banners, and whispered secrets in the dark to Arya - “I wish I was a Stark,” he’d said, and for all that she was little, and all that she was young, her eyes in the candlelight had been fierce, her voice had been strong. “You are a Stark. The only one that matters.” - and that had been all she cared about. She’d loved her family, of course, but Arya had always loved Jon best of all, and it had been easy to get carried away in it, when the rest of their siblings took so much after Catelyn in looks.  - Jon and Dany reflect on who and what they are after Jon's true lineage is revealed.





	it exists in me too

“Your sisters don’t care for me,” she’d told him, that first night, before Bran and Sam had upended his world in the solar the night he returned to Winterfell, and he’d laughed, then, amused by the pinch between her brows, the only indication whatsoever that she was doing more than making an observation.   


He’d laughed, and reminded her that he’d warned her the Starks were difficult to charm, and amidst his bannerman and her Dothraki bloodriders and the Unsullied, all he’d been able to do was dip his head and watch her through his lashes as she bit the inside of her bottom lip and turned away.

He’d wanted to drag her into his arms, press a kiss into the braid at the side of her head, laugh and tell her she’d win them over as she had him, but he had an image to maintain, just as she did - he’d have gotten an arach to the throat, and the north would have rallied against her in a heartbeat, her crime the unwitting seduction of the man they’d named King in the North, the man who had come back with a new queen for them all, a queen they didn’t want, and no king to speak of. And beyond that, he’s not entirely certain the Stark girls will ever truly warm to Daenerys.

Now, he mulls over the words in the dim hallways of Winterfell, while the men of the north whisper curses about their false king, barely a Stark at all, a northerner with dragon’s blood. _His sisters_. 

They weren’t, never were, and Ned Stark had taken that secret with him to the grave, and yet still, it had survived him.

He wishes it had died with him. 

He is a wolf in scales, raised as a child of winter, christened in the hot springs of the godswood, he is ice and snow and the harshness of the north, but fire sings in his blood, madness and death call out for him. There was never anything in this world he desired so much as to be a Stark, to wear the furs and the sigil of his family, to belong to something truly bigger than himself.

He’d learned the words before Robb - whispered them in the quiet of the night while his brother slept, rolling them over in his mouth until they sounded stern and knowing like his fathers - like Ned’s had sounded. 

He’d memorized the names of his forefathers, the great deeds they’d done, the achievements they’d made, the names of their swords, the feats of honor. He’d traced his hand over their banners, and whispered secrets in the dark to Arya - “I wish I was a Stark,” he’d said, and for all that she was little, and all that she was young, her eyes in the candlelight had been fierce, her voice had been strong. “You _are_ a Stark. The only one that matters.” - and that had been all she cared about. She’d loved her family, of course, but Arya had always loved Jon best of all, and it had been easy to get carried away in it, when the rest of their siblings took so much after Catelyn in looks. 

He’d prayed in the godswood, because his gods were the Old Gods, and he’d always known that he was a man of the North, that his fathers family spanned back further than any other in all of Westeros.

It shouldn’t make a difference - he’s still a Stark, still has the blood of that family running through his veins. 

He’s still a Stark.

But when he paces the halls of Winterfell he feels like an intruder.

When he kneels before the heart tree in the Godswood, and wonders if Eddard Stark whispered his secrets to the leaking sap of the weirwood, the steam from the spring is cool against his skin, and he feels none of the ice of the Starks in his heart. 

_You’re a Stark to me_ , Sansa had said, what feels a lifetime ago, and he wonders - _he wonders,_ if they’d known - if they’d all known who he was, if things might have been different. If Catelyn Stark might have been able to love him, protect him, care for him, free from the burden of hating what he represented. If he might have stood beside Robb as an equal, if Sansa might have been kinder. 

He’d had a mother and a father who loved each other. He’d not come into this world by mistake. But if the world had known that, he’d have been dead before he ever passed into the North for the first time.

Perhaps it would have been for the best.

He tries to remember the words he’d spoken to Theon in the throne room at Dragonstone - the exact phrasing of it, like saying it now, again, might help him reconcile this new truth. A Stark, and a Targaryen, both wolf and dragon.

He could remember Sansa and Robb reciting the Tully’s words alongside the more desolate Stark one. Family, Duty, Honor. He’d envied them for it, hadn’t he? 

All he’d ever had was Winter is Coming, and there was something ominous about the words he could not  truly claim as his own - but now. 

Fire and Blood. 

Perhaps he hadn’t known the words, but he’d lived them all the same. 

“ _Your sisters don’t care for me_ ,” Dany had told him, and it had amused him at the time. Now it taunts him, echoing in the corners of his mind.   


_They don’t care much for me, either_ , he wants to tell her now, and though Arya might protest, he can see it in her eyes - in both of their eyes, even as they put on the ruse of a united front. 

Not that she’d listen.

\------

He’d teased her once, on the Kings Road, as they rode toward Winterfell, on her numerous names and titles. “You’re plenty impressive without them, Your Grace,” he’d told her, trying hard not to smile, and she’d rolled her eyes away from his face to hide her expression from him. 

They’d agreed not to mention what had transpired on the ship between them, but they were both doing a terrible job of hiding it. 

But Jon Snow had occupied just as many titles in his time, hadn’t he? The Bastard of Winterfell, man of the Nights Watch, Lord Commander, traitor, the White Wolf - King in the North.

And now another, more dangerous. _Aegon Targaryen._

She couldn’t remember her brother. Only the stories she’d heard of him, the words of men who had respected him, who had loathed him, who had known him as he lived and died. 

How she hated him now, in a way she’d never known how to respect him. 

_Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died._

Rhaegar, as far as she could tell, was led by his cock and his superstition, and she _hates_ him for it, this dead man whose contingency plan has stripped her of her right to the Iron Throne before she ever sat it. 

She understands him far better than she might like. There was something about these northerners - about Jon Snow. Something that had called to her heart, something that had seen a kindred spirit. Something that had seen honor and bravery and justice and had yearned to grasp at it, to hold on to it, to let it guide her away from the fire in her veins and the fury in her heart and the promise of madness that came with it. 

Perhaps Rhaegar had thought Lyanna Stark might temper the madness inside of him. Perhaps she truly was a beauty, and that had been all that mattered to Rhaegar. Perhaps they’d fallen in love, and theirs had been a union of partners, of equals.

Perhaps she finds herself wishing her brothers follies might help her explain her own.

There’s a good chance she ought to have left, by now, sought a new ally, returned to Meereen to build up armies large enough to defeat a stronger claim than her own. Returned to Dragonstone, to let the rightful heir to the Iron Throne get himself killed by the Night King while she bides her time in the south.

But there’s a voice in the back of her mind that tells her such a scheme lacks honor, and if it chides her in the same tone as Jon Snow had used on Cersei in the dragon pits, only Dany has to know.

She does not leave, even when her heart aches to think of all the things she has lost because of Jon Snow, and she knows it is her brothers fault. Her brothers, and all the family before him - Fire and Blood were their words, and it is all she has ever had to give - all she has taken. Fire she will gift to this man who is no bastard of the north, fire she will rain down on their enemies. Blood she will share with him, and love and despise him all the more for it. 

She doesn’t try to fool herself into believing this revelation has made her care for him any less. The rest of the world need not know it, but it makes it easier for her, somehow. She’d been drawn to him because he sought no power, because his cause was not a throne or a kingdom but _life_ , she’d been drawn to him because he was honorable and good before he was anything else. 

She is drawn to him no less now. She hates herself for it, for proving just how very Targaryen she really is, but for all that she should now hate everything he is, she looks at him and sees all the things she has always striven to be. 

She hears the lords of the north mutter treasonous words under their breath and she wants to rain fire upon them. She wants to let Drogon tear them limb from limb, and present their bloodied corpses to Jon Snow as gifts. 

She wants.

That is the worst of it, for Jon Snow wants nothing to do with her now. She has not spoken to him in nearly a fortnight, every council meeting a fight not to meet his eyes, every walk through the halls of Winterfell a testament to her ability not to flinch when met with an obstacle too great to overcome. 

And still, even knowing what she is to him, what he is to her, what he is to the realm. Still, she wants, and her stomach churns with it, her mind runs wild, her hands clench - her eyes seek him out as he trains in the yard with Arya Stark, as he walks towards the godswood with Sansa and her body sings with jealousy at the ease with which they have accepted the truth of him; as he stands tall and brave against the barely concealed hatred of a crowded room of northerners and announces that the battle is the same, that the politics matter not.

She hates Jon Snow almost as much as she hates Aegon Targaryen. She hates her brother for bringing him into this world, hates the Starks for being just the sort of stupidly brave and true Rhaegar might have admired. 

She hates herself most of all, for not setting Jon Snow ablaze when first they met, for growing used to him, for allowing him to clear space in her heart to settle. She hates that she wants to share with him the things that have always been hers alone to fight for.

She is Danaerys Stormborn - she has conquered cities and burnt enemies, she has said goodbye to friends and lovers and allies without looking back, all in pursuit of the throne that is no longer rightfully hers. That never _was_ hers.  

She has never truly known what it meant to have a family - not like Jon, who despite the loud arguments and the heated words holds strong with the Starks of Winterfell. She has never known until now, and she wishes she could tell him. 

_I would burn cities for you. I would destroy your enemies, for they are my enemies too. You have the blood of the dragon,_ she thinks to herself _, and you are my own._

_I am yours_ , she thinks, though it doesn’t matter. If they both survive the war ahead of them, she supposes one of them will have to kill the other.

Jon doesn’t have the stomach for it.

She’s beginning to think she might not, either.


End file.
